Opticians, Perceptions
This morning I had to go to the opticians for my annual check up. I've had short sight since I was ten so this is an extremely familiar experience. Now I've reached the age where, with my lenses in, small print has started to be an issue too, although I haven't been prescribed reading glasses or bifocals this time around. I have a slightly weaker prescription in my 'less dominant' eye in order to compensate for any strain reading books and text.
I am used to being short sighted though. I wear contact lenses most days and get on with them fine, but there's always that disorientation first thing in the morning, with the alarm going off, me scrabbling for my glasses, and, these days, large black kittens trilling in anticipation of their (first) breakfast. Something one also gets used to.
Sometimes I've wondered how being so short sighted all my teenage and adult life has affect the way I am and the way I see things. Are glasses something to hide behind, or just a result of inherited tendencies to myopia brought on my early and extensive relationship to texts. I do remember sitting in certain seminars as a PhD student and taking my glasses off sometimes when feeling out of my depth or just a bit dislocated from the situation; I liked the fuzzy, distancing effect this had. So I was thinking of these sight metaphors as a postgraduate and was interested to find feminist theorist Helene Cixous also wrote about her experience of myopia, and how she considered it affected her general perceptions of life. I built this into a chapter of the PhD, and can't resist the temptation to quote from it here:
Myopia, or short sight, is traditionally seens as a defect, and used as a metaphor with regard to someone being unable to see things properly, focus on their goals and tasks, being near or short-sighted with regard to an activity or attitude. The world is a dangerous place for people who are short-sighted, having been designed for those who naturally focus at a certain distance; a tightly conforming standard of vision is set by opticians. The myopic person is 'cured' by being prescribed glasses or contact lenses or even subjected to surgery bu knife or laser. Meanwhile, alternative practitioners suggest that short sight results from a psychic refusal to see life as it really is, and work towards the healing of this unconsciously self-induced impediment. However, short-sight, or at least the mental and emotional attitudes metaphorically implied by it, should not be dismissed without considering how a condition of myopia might be seen as a 'different' level of vision, with a need to come close for details, with the intermingling of colours ad objects that a less rigid distance focus gives, and how this leads to a different emphasis, and a lessening of importance for the structured gaze. These implications have not been lost on Helene Cixous.
Cixous declares her own "defect" of short sight, but turns it into a virtue, allying herself explicitily with artists, and implicitly with mystics, by the way she sees things afresh. Cixous pays attention to details, never tiring of the repetitive examination of everyday objects, invisible because of their mundaneity. 'Details are my kingdoms' she says, linking her distinctive perspective to her own myopia. [And here's the quote from Cixous:]
'I am nearsighted. And even if I have often blamed God for this, I often thank him for it. It's a relief...I write because I am nearsighted: it's also, I think, through nearsightedness, thanks to my nearsightedness, that I love. I am someone who looks at things from very, very close up. Seen through my eyes, little things are very big. Details are my kingdoms. Some people survey. Some people who are far-seeing don't see what is very near. I am someone who sees the smallest letters of the earth. Flat on my stomach in the garden, I see the ants. I see each of the ants' feet. Insects become my heroes. Am I not a little bit right? Human beings are divine insects. What is beautiful is that such little creatures can be so big. Such are the benefits of my nearsightedness' [1991: 109]
[and this is me again:] The idea that certain small details are significant enough to reveal the 'kingdom' in some way date back to the medieval mystics, Julian of Norwich who saw 'God in a point' and the secrets of the world revealed to her in a vision of a hazelnut held in the palm of the hand. Where there is apparently 'nothing to be seen' great secrets are sometimes revealed to the mystic, who, like Cixous, looks closely, or sees differently.
Well, that's enough - I don't look through my PhD very often, though it sits on the bookshelves here, proudly bound in blue hardback. Quite big print too, I must say. Not specifically poetry-centric, my thesis, but of course the poem, especially the lyric poem, immediately comes to mind as the small 'insect' of the literary world which repays all the close contemplation we can manage... But time to shut my eyes in sleep now.
I am used to being short sighted though. I wear contact lenses most days and get on with them fine, but there's always that disorientation first thing in the morning, with the alarm going off, me scrabbling for my glasses, and, these days, large black kittens trilling in anticipation of their (first) breakfast. Something one also gets used to.
Sometimes I've wondered how being so short sighted all my teenage and adult life has affect the way I am and the way I see things. Are glasses something to hide behind, or just a result of inherited tendencies to myopia brought on my early and extensive relationship to texts. I do remember sitting in certain seminars as a PhD student and taking my glasses off sometimes when feeling out of my depth or just a bit dislocated from the situation; I liked the fuzzy, distancing effect this had. So I was thinking of these sight metaphors as a postgraduate and was interested to find feminist theorist Helene Cixous also wrote about her experience of myopia, and how she considered it affected her general perceptions of life. I built this into a chapter of the PhD, and can't resist the temptation to quote from it here:
Myopia, or short sight, is traditionally seens as a defect, and used as a metaphor with regard to someone being unable to see things properly, focus on their goals and tasks, being near or short-sighted with regard to an activity or attitude. The world is a dangerous place for people who are short-sighted, having been designed for those who naturally focus at a certain distance; a tightly conforming standard of vision is set by opticians. The myopic person is 'cured' by being prescribed glasses or contact lenses or even subjected to surgery bu knife or laser. Meanwhile, alternative practitioners suggest that short sight results from a psychic refusal to see life as it really is, and work towards the healing of this unconsciously self-induced impediment. However, short-sight, or at least the mental and emotional attitudes metaphorically implied by it, should not be dismissed without considering how a condition of myopia might be seen as a 'different' level of vision, with a need to come close for details, with the intermingling of colours ad objects that a less rigid distance focus gives, and how this leads to a different emphasis, and a lessening of importance for the structured gaze. These implications have not been lost on Helene Cixous.
Cixous declares her own "defect" of short sight, but turns it into a virtue, allying herself explicitily with artists, and implicitly with mystics, by the way she sees things afresh. Cixous pays attention to details, never tiring of the repetitive examination of everyday objects, invisible because of their mundaneity. 'Details are my kingdoms' she says, linking her distinctive perspective to her own myopia. [And here's the quote from Cixous:]
'I am nearsighted. And even if I have often blamed God for this, I often thank him for it. It's a relief...I write because I am nearsighted: it's also, I think, through nearsightedness, thanks to my nearsightedness, that I love. I am someone who looks at things from very, very close up. Seen through my eyes, little things are very big. Details are my kingdoms. Some people survey. Some people who are far-seeing don't see what is very near. I am someone who sees the smallest letters of the earth. Flat on my stomach in the garden, I see the ants. I see each of the ants' feet. Insects become my heroes. Am I not a little bit right? Human beings are divine insects. What is beautiful is that such little creatures can be so big. Such are the benefits of my nearsightedness' [1991: 109]
[and this is me again:] The idea that certain small details are significant enough to reveal the 'kingdom' in some way date back to the medieval mystics, Julian of Norwich who saw 'God in a point' and the secrets of the world revealed to her in a vision of a hazelnut held in the palm of the hand. Where there is apparently 'nothing to be seen' great secrets are sometimes revealed to the mystic, who, like Cixous, looks closely, or sees differently.
Well, that's enough - I don't look through my PhD very often, though it sits on the bookshelves here, proudly bound in blue hardback. Quite big print too, I must say. Not specifically poetry-centric, my thesis, but of course the poem, especially the lyric poem, immediately comes to mind as the small 'insect' of the literary world which repays all the close contemplation we can manage... But time to shut my eyes in sleep now.
Great Post!
ReplyDeleteActually everyone of us are not completely healthy. However, many people may be unaware of the health of their eyes and may not realize that eye examinations are an effective way to pick up any problems within the eye that may cause damage to a person’s sight further down the line. Like we feel slight headache due to continuous behavior as reading, watching TV’s, using computers and so on…., which we neglect and at last it may lead to major problems. So it would be better if we have a trip to the optician once a while.
http://www.leightonsopticians.com/